12 Days at Disney Feb 2018 Trip Report - Day Four
Animal Kingdom and EPCOT
This is one the "Perfect Disney Days" of our trip. We had an amazing meal and saw my favorite fireworks, so I call that a win.
The day started at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Do we go to Animal Kingdom much? Heck, yeah! It's my favorite, what can I say? On this day, we had a FastPass for Na'Vi River Journey. Man, that song gets in your head! After that, we had a FastPass for Expedition Everest, but mom was not up for that again, so we agreed to let it go and stroll around the Tree of Life Gardens instead. If I had to name a favorite place in the world, the Tree of Life Gardens comes close to the top, and if the sun is right, it is at the top of the list. I just have so many good memories of this area of the park that go way back, and the path behind the tree, near the Tough to Be a Bug exit is like a secret walkway, but filled with beauty. So, it didn't take much convincing on my mom's part to get me to abandon a FastPass for this stroll.
While on the path, we saw Flick and got a picture! Then, we headed to my mom's favorite stroll - Maharajah Jungle Trek. It might seem a waste of morning hours to do these walks, but that's actually when the animals are more active and we got to see two tiger cubs, so it was worth it!
Then we headed over to Dinoland while we snacked on a Mickey's Premium Ice Cream bar, just looking around and biding our time until our Kilimanjaro Safari Fastpass. The Safari is never predictable. I've been on a few "bunny safaris" where nothing ever happens, but boy we lucked out this time around! It was an outstanding safari. We saw baby elephants spraying each other with water, and had to stop for a crash of rhinos (5 rhinos to be exact) to cross in front of our jeep.
After the Safari, we walked Gorilla Falls exploration trail and watched the meerkats for a while. If you don't do the animal trails at Animal Kingdom, you are doing it wrong.
We were pretty tired from all that walking, though, so we straggled over to Tiffins for our ADR. We got there pretty early, so we went to Nomad Lounge for a drink while waiting for our table. I had something lovely that had watermelon and gin, and mom had something she didn't care for with peppercorns. Our meal at Tiffins was outstanding and I will argue this is now the best dining experience at Walt Disney World, with the possible exception of Victoria and Albert's. For me, though, it would be hard to top the sentimentality of this meal. To dine surrounded by photos taken while on trips to Africa and Asia that would aid in the design of my favorite park was just something very special to me.
The food was, of course, outstanding. We shared black-eyed pea fritters. I had the pan-seared duck with blueberry sauce, and mom had a vegetable dish, and then we shared a trio of South African desserts. Our server was amazing. Never intrusive, but always attentive. We had to do no more than put our fork down and for there to be a lull in our conversation before he appeared. HIs name was Giancarlo. That fact that I remember that just shows how good he was. It was truly a wonderful meal.
We retired back to the Polynesian for a while and had a swim and hot tub time before heading out at around 5:30 to EPCOT. We love World Showcase in the evening, so that's where we headed. In Mexico, we had margaritas. Mine was a grapefruit margarita - so good! - but I think it made me get a little dehydrated because I hit a little bit of a wall around France and had to rest in the quiet English Garden on a bench for a little bit. I drank a bunch of water, and began to feel better after a little rest. It was 80 degrees that day, which for someone coming from the snowy Midwest in February, is a bit of a change, so I'm going to attribute this hour of discomfort to lack of water and drinking that exacerbated things.
Anyway... did I learn my lesson? Heck no. Because we had dinner at Rose and Crown and the first thing I saw on the menu was a fireball cider (hard cider and fireball whiskey) and knew I had to have it. It was luscious, and I didn't pay for this one the way I paid for the margarita. In fact, it was just a quintessential Disney moment drinking my hard cider while a soft breeze blew off the World Showcase lagoon as we dined on the patio. Rose and Crown is one of our favorites. The patio dining there is just hard to beat, and the food is so yummy. I had a shepherd pie, we shared an English pie (don't ask me the difference - I don't recall) and we shared a sticky toffee pudding. Mom had fish and chips for her meal and a ridiculous drink called a Magic Star that sparkled with different colors.
It was 2018, so EPCOT still had THE BEST fireworks (ahem), Illuminations. I am SO SAD that show is gone. So. Sad. Anyway, we watched from the patio while finishing our dessert, which is always the plan. I knew every note, every blast, of that fireworks show and I will miss it forever, but seeing it was a great cap to the night. We finished our dessert in a leisurely manner, and by the time we headed out of the pub, the exiting crowds had thinned. We got on the monorail back to the TTC and then walked from there to the Polynesian, which is just about the best way to leave EPCOT ever. Maybe the skyliner beats the convenience of the monorail now.... I'm not sure. But I was just glad not to have to board a bus.
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